In shock, Daniel dropped the coasters and realized he hadn't been hallucinating: the monster could speak.

At the same time, a silent avalanche of papery discs tumbled over Daniel: the column he had plucked the coasters from had collapsed.

Dumbfounded by the creature's speech, Daniel, up to his neck in coasters, was too surprised to pull himself from the pile.

"As you can imagine," the creature said, "collecting coasters is fun at first. But the appeal doesn't last. Each coaster is identical.”

“What,” Daniel said.

The “what” wasn't a question; it was a statement of Daniel's utter incomprehension. The same creature that had earlier tried to disembowel him was now giving him hobby advice.

Daniel stared open-mouthed at the pulsing form hanging above his head like a blunt, fat, living stalactite.

Then the creature tilted its body 45 degrees, almost as if cocking its head in thought, and said, "If, however, you do enjoy collecting many identical items, I am sorry if I implied it was not a source of amusement. I meant no offense.”

It spoke in a soothing, reasonable tone, one without a hint of pride or condescension; the voice wouldn't have been out of place coming from a therapist Aye or a sentient pop-up ad.

“Took forever to get these spoons into the right shape,” the creature said, picking up one of its former 'talons' and examining it in the light.

Daniel's head swam with questions.

Where is Jeska? What is this place? Jeska's gone? Why did it shape spoons? Jeska's gone. JESKA'S GONE. JESKA'S GONE. No, don't think about that. Deal with it later. Where am I, really? More importantly, why isn't this thing trying kill me?

The creature dropped the weapon, and then, with the same tentacle, took Daniel's hand in its grip, shook it up and down, and then released it.

When Daniel didn't say anything, the creature continued speaking.

“It is a pleasure to meet you,” the creature said. “Jeska told me that your name is Daniel. You may call me Prnei or any variation thereof. Whatever is easiest for you. Excuse me a moment."

And then the creature that called itself “Prnei” began to change shape.

With its snail-like foot gripping the ceiling tightly, the creature slumped and relaxed.

It no longer looked like a smooth-tipped bullet with vertical lines down its lower half. It still had two tentacles, but its body had taken the shape of a swollen blood-red raindrop hanging above Daniel's head.

As it transformed, it changed color again, losing its yellow tint and becoming an odd mix of white and black. Its red eye was the only color in its body.

If an art student drew an ink outline of a two-armed octopus, painted its one eye, got bored, went to lunch, came back, realized the two-armed octopus project was due in ten minutes, cursed himself, and turned the work in without coloring anything else, Daniel thought the project would look a lot like the creature he was staring at.

A cloud- and gene-modded octopus could survive in the vacuum of space, understand basic commands and, most importantly, help around the home. Before his life fell a part five years ago, Daniel had considered purchasing one to aide in repair work.

Of course, Daniel wouldn't buy the alien in front of him. Not enough arms … and too much attempted murder.

“I'm sure you wish to continue your tour,” it said. “Stuck Station is truly beautiful. You'll like it. At first.”

Daniel continued to gape, and the creature noted Daniel's confusion, but misunderstood the cause.

Then with a blast of moist air, the creature coughed and grunted, and the vertical lines running down its lower half expanded.

The tentacles -- the ones that made up the creature's snail-like foot, the tentacles that Daniel had thought fused -- curled upward, like someone peeling a banana upside down.

For some unfathomable reason, the alien had been holding the tentacles straight down, like a human pressing her legs together and walking on her tiptoes.

With its ten tentacles, it looked much like every other octopus Daniel had ever seen … except this one rested on the ceiling instead of the ocean floor.

“If I keep my arms rigid like that, it blocks my mandibles," the creature said, which made an odd kind of sense. As Daniel had seen earlier -- when the creature tried to eat him -- the creature's jaws rested underneath it.

"Very difficult to talk with one's feet in one's mouth, as your species says. Can you hear me more clearly?"

Daniel just stood there slack-jawed.

“That is much better,” the creature decided, and shook itself to get the kinks out of its ten arms.

After a little more stretching and shaking, the creature that called itself Prnei put the finishing touches on its transformation.

With a soft slurping sound, it pulled in the suckers on its arms, making the little O's look less protruding and less threatening, more like tattoos than tools for keeping prey in place.

The creature's legs swelled becoming almost cartoonishly thick and plump.

Its eye changed to pinkish-red, a sharp contrast to the chilling blood-red that had glared at Daniel earlier.

And finally, the creature opened the scar on the opposite side of its body … or rather, Daniel realized, the creature opened its other eye. The creature had been keeping one eye closed the whole time.

“Ahhhh,” the creature said, in its soft but vaguely masculine voice.

It didn't look like an abomination anymore. It looked harmless. More than harmless.

It was adorable, even comical, and somehow its lack of a visible mouth made it all the more innocuous.

It reminded him of one of those little bad-guys in that game Jeska had been addicted to … Prac-man? Krak man?

However, despite its metamorphosis, the creature's new form didn't make Daniel feel at ease.

Because, even though Daniel's internal translator changed the sounds the creature produced into words, Daniel could still hear the clicking from the creature's hideous maw, the jaws hidden away beneath its ten tentacles.

And the sound of the clicking mandibles made Daniel replay the last hour in his head, especially the creature's effort to stab, strangle and eat him.

“The tour is not stupid,” Tour Guide said, sounding hurt. “After a few hours, you will be reunited with your friends and be ready to get to work.”

“I'm guessing the tour is stupid?” Daniel asked Prnei.

“Most definitely,” Prnei said. “It is probably more accurate to call the tour 'pointless.' But you must take it. I fear for your safety. Being jettisoned is unpleasant … and fatal.”

“I thought I had days.”

“Yes, but why risk it?” Tour Guide said.

“'You have a few days, 'officially,'” Prnei said, and Daniel was surprised to see it use the ancient human “air-quotes” gesture with its tentacles. “But sometimes Stuck Station ayes don't do what they're are told.”

Daniel had the oddest feeling that Prnei was overstating the system's competency to save its feelings.

That worried Daniel.

Because, if the other systems were anything like Tour Guide -- who hadn't been able to answer basic questions -- Daniel would be surprised if the station's ayes would be smart enough to wait a few minutes, let alone a few days, before giving him the spacekick.

Some ignore it. Some embrace it. Some feed off it. Some sell it as gag gifts at parties. A lucky few, like Trak, never feel it.

As for humans, fear is a powerful emotion.

Not as powerful as, say, love or hatred, both of which have spawned countless interstellar conflicts and – thanks to the unfortunate invention of the senso-conversion beam – powered countless interstellar conflicts.

But fear is a close third on the list.

Nausea is high up there too. But there is some debate as to whether nausea is an emotion at all.

The least powerful emotion?

Boredom … though Jeska and the current crew of Stuck Station crew might disagree with that.

As for fear, what awaited Daniel, Trak and Rachel-7 in the final orientation room would induce paroxysms of terror in almost any intelligent being.

“However,” it said, “should a crew member require special care -- if they catch a particularly nasty virus that a medicloud can't deal with, for example -- the patient will be flitted to this center, where our cloud specialists will use the most advanced techniques and equipment available. A speedy recovery is 99.99 percent guaranteed.”

Have I seen those shapes before? Daniel thought, as one of them winked out and another appeared.

“In fact,” Tour Guide added, obviously quite proud, “since the creation of this facility there has not been a single crew fatality.”

Daniel wanted to rush through the tour and find his friends (55 more sites to visit, he thought glumly), but he had to know if he was right.

“Is that what I think it is?” Daniel said, pointing at the glowing shapes.

"Please hold all questions until the end of the tour,” the Tour Guide said.

“Can I at least get some light?”

“Please hold all questions … My apologies. The last being to use this chamber hadn't needed light to see. At least at first,” the Tour Guide.

“That makes no sense. Do you practice being cryptic?”

“Please hold all questions until the end of the tour.”

And then the light came on and Daniel was well and truly flummoxed.

He stood in front of something so rare that people who had seen similar objects sold their memories of it for princely sums.

It was a cloud nest.

He’d seen one before in a borrowed memory that he had rented as a teenager. It had been expensive.

He didn’t even remember the memory now – he’d had to return it – but he did remember having the memory and that’s why this thing looked so familiar.

The nest was a structure of interlocking geometric shapes at least 100 stories tall, a spire of glowing rods and metal cubes and crystalline pipes and a thousand other myriad shapes that seemed to shiver and dance in an unseen wind.

Collections of pyramids and spheres stretched out like limbs; some of the spires branches were as big as the spire itself.

And despite his recent fatalism, Daniel hoped he’d live long enough to sell this memory.

Daniel had his own theory about why clouds made nests: It was a form of doodling.

And unlike bored schoolchildren, clouds could use any type of matter as a virtual pen.

It seemed obvious to Daniel. After millions of years, the swarms grew tired of their jobs, and, to break the monotony, they sculpted towers out of whatever atoms they found lying around.

Daniel could relate. He’d been miserable as a janitor and had spent much of the time doodling on every two-dimensional surface he could find at the Humboldt Sector Hospital.

The doodling theory also made sense to him because it explained why the clouds destroyed their nests – they didn’t want to get in trouble.

Daniel erased unflattering pictures of his boss when the boss got too close; clouds destroyed their impromptu art when they knew someone was watching.

Daniel wished the clouds would relax and stop caring what people thought. Even when he worked at his dad’s cloudyard, he’d thought they worked too hard.

But there was no doubt they were fascinating to watch. Entranced, he stared at the telltale blur of the clouds moving through the air, enjoying their leisure time.

One of the larger clouds converted a shimmering metallic octahedron into a three-foot-tall purple cone. Another swarm dissolved an entire limb of the tower. Still another built a series of tubular strands of clear material at the object's base.

Until today, Daniel hadn't known that clouds made scents when they doodled.

Daniel smelled lilacs and diesel fuel. Unlike the stench that had accompanied him into the Stuck Station medical center, this odor was oddly pleasant.

Rather than continue the pointless conversation with a mentally unstable Aye, Daniel started walking as far from the tower as he could.

Moving quietly, he hoped that taking the long way around the nest would help him reach the next part of the tour -- without the clouds catching him watching them, of course.

Daniel tried not to stare, but the nest was beautiful and alien.

The top part of the tower, a smooth bulge of spheres and more octahedrons, was easily the size of the Afterthought. But just beneath that bulge, the tower tapered down to the width of Daniel's index finger before expanding again to another bulge of geometric shapes.

Though it looked flimsy, the material must have been as solid as diamondglass. Otherwise, in this single-gravity environment, the tower would have snapped like a twig.

Hypnotized, Daniel thought the nest seemed … nice. It was the product of a trillion trillion trillion tiny bored minds and didn’t have any purpose other than wasting time. A beautiful waste of time.

Definitely a doodle, Daniel concluded.

One of the clouds descended from high above and wrapped around a glowing pyramid on one of the tower’s limbs.

The shape begin to change.

Abruptly, the cloud stopped its work and rose two feet above the pyramid. The bulk of the cloud pointed straight at Daniel.

Daniel cursed. He’d been seen.

The swarm let out a fine mist, which Daniel knew as a cloud sigh.

As the clouds relayed the message that playtime was over, the tower dissolved into nothingness.

“No!,” Daniel said, and sighed.

Not going to see that again. At least I got the whole thing recorded and—

Humboldt Sector Hospital had been 50,000 square miles of sprawling medical complex, and if Daniel’s estimate was right, this room could swallow all of Humbolt and easily have space left over for the 250-mile asteroid that Humboldt had been built on.

Without his measuring app (which the augmem had managed), he knew his estimate could be wrong. But that didn’t change the fact that the place was large.

So large he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him – until he remembered that since their most recent firmware update, his eyes couldn't … at least not intentionally.

The floor behind him seemed like it went on forever and with his magnification on absolute maximum he could see that the floor slowly curved upward before becoming the walls and eventually the ceiling. It was as if someone had hollowed out a pearl the size of a moon and filled it with medical tech.

Daniel hoped it was medical tech.

For all he knew, the random assemblages of metal, ceramic, plastic, and organic tissue that dotted the curving ground could be the ship’s creators.

He moved closer to one of the small installations, a pile of interconnected electronics covered with glowing screens and what appeared to be several small organs floating in clear containers.

“Hello?” he said, trying to initiate contact.

“Yes?” said the Tour Guide.

“Not you,” Daniel said, and reached out his hand to see if the pile would react.

“Exercise is good for you,” the Tour Guide said again, oblivious to Daniel’s sarcasm.

He passed a piece of equipment that looked like a three-foot-tall rectangular blob of clear gel, hovering three feet off the ground. Curled tubes of yellow metal dangled from the blob’s edges and connected with the floor.

Near the shadow of one of the machine's corners, Daniel saw something marring the perfect whiteness of the glossy ground.

Clouds must have been so busying doodling they didn't clean up after their last procedure, he thought.

Immune to 99.99 percent of known diseases, clouds weren't bothered by dirty workplaces, even ones that were supposed to be sterile.

While the room looked mostly spotless, they had missed a few red splotches of blood, mostly likely human, recently dried.

Stuck On: Medstation

Medstation is the generic word for any piece of medical equipment that does the work of mediclouds, but is not a medicloud itself.

Medstations can range from the simple (antiviraldispenser) to the complex (organ duplicator) to the absurd (forehead lengthener).

Still glaring at the ceiling, Daniel accidentally walked into a safety railing and let out a grunt of pain.

He followed that grunt with a shocked intake of breath.

Protected by the thin, blue guard rail that Daniel had banged his thigh against, a vast pit had formed in front of him. If he squinted he could see the edges of the pit still expanding, the clouds hard at work reforming part of the Medical Center.

That wasn't there before, Daniel thought. Or maybe it was, and the clouds are just peeling back the ground to let me see the second floor.

Oddly enough, what the Tour Guide had called “the second floor” was actually below the first floor. Daniel chalked that up to his still-forming, completely unsettling “The Tour Guide is insane or at least malfunctioning” theory.

When the clouds stopped building, Daniel saw that the pit was full of fog and dark, motionless cylinders. Daniel couldn’t see the bottom, but he could tell it was a long way down.

The guard rail had saved him from a nasty -- maybe even fatal -- fall.

Daniel leaned over the railing and gazed at the darkness below.

He was just about to get a better view one of those cylinders, when a bright contact window opened in his eyescreens, revealing a pretty face contorted with rage.

In the window, a beautiful woman he had never seen before began cursing him loudly and passionately.

She had a shock of shining red hair, emerald eyes and a robe just like his, with the word "Visitor" on its left breast.

As she switched from pure cursing to a mix of cursing and insults, Daniel realized he knew her.

Her haughty tone and oh-so-perfect British accent gave her away.

“Hello, Rachel,” Daniel said.

Then, at the sudden understanding of the “conversion process” the Tour Guide had mentioned, Daniel laughed so hard he almost lost his grip on the railing and plummeted into the pit.

And, she reminded herself, Trak and Daniel aren't “friends." They are co-workers who serve to highlight your own exceptionality.

She'd admit, she did have a certain fondness for the ugly Mek and the drunken human.

But that’s as far as she’d allow herself to emote. She didn’t need friends. She didn’t want them.

“Idiots?” she said, hoping they’d quickly respond.

When no one said anything, the worry spread deeper inside her, like a virus coldly infecting her mind.

“Trak? Daniel?”

It was quiet.

She couldn’t sense any lifesigns in the ship’s cabin. She couldn’t detect any kind of cabin at all.

The Afterthought’s decks had vanished.

The explosion gutted us, and my frien— my coworkers are gone.

The worry inside her grew.

She issued another emergency broadcast message: “Ship in trouble. Please respond. Quicker than As Soon As Possible.”

Or at least she tried to issue one. Her communications array had disappeared as well.

She suddenly became aware of an unpleasant sensation along the Afterthought’s keel. A marked decrease in temperature coupled with minor discomfort. The entire surface of the hull became covered in condensation.

The Afterthought had no nervous system and Rachel-7 didn’t feel pain. But the discomfort wasn’t … pleasant.

She heard a hissing sound and immediately identified it. Someone was breathing aboard her ship.

Daniel was alive.

And if Daniel made it, Trak, with his over-armored body, would certainly have survived it too.

She stifled her elation.

You don't need to celebrate. You don't need them, she thought. Alright, you can celebrate a little.

There wasn’t any sign of the reality-mangling Kep Effect. She felt none of the discomfort usually associated with a high-intensity energy weapon volley. No ship architecture-shift protocol had been activated.

Yet for no reason she could see, part of the Afterthought had slumped down like a melting ice sculpture.

Her cabin and her forward visual sensors now rested at a 45 degree angle.

Rachel-7 hadn’t been afraid of the fusion cannon explosion or the Kep Effect or Alitma’s warship.

But now, alone and totally out of her depth, Rachel-7 felt real fear.

“Trak?! Daniel?!” she screamed. “Someone?!”

Rachel-7 became aware that the view from her optical sensors had shifted. Originally they depicted a bright light, but they now showed something … else.

Something that, despite her fear, she quickly identified.

It was a pair of feet.

Human feet.

Her feet.

She felt the fear melt away, replaced with a blinding rage.

She’d been wrong – she wasn't inside the Afterthought, and hadn't been since the explosion.

The minor discomfort, the condensation, the energy conundrum, the indecipherable movement readings all suddenly made sense.

Rachel-7 was itchy, sweating, hungry and 100 percent organic.

The ship hadn't bent; Rachel-7 had tilted her neck down to avoid the glare. There was no intruder onboard; it was the sound of her own respiration.

There had been no coolant leak; she had smacked her nose – the round object that had been blocking her view – on the ground and bled on the floor.

And, as for the “acid,” she must have smelled something awful.

Her junkpile of a ship had disappeared, replaced with something much worse.

“Never thought of you as the blank broker type,” Daniel said, when he had stopped laughing and Rachel-7 had stopped cursing.

“That’s offensive,” she snapped. “And I didn’t have any say in the matter.”

“I know. … Ha.”

“It’s also not funny.”

“You being human is very funny,” he said, holding back another laugh.

Stuck On: Blank brokerage

FromA Human’s Dictionary of The 28th Century (Now with Black Hole Detection)

Blank brokerage: Noun. Slang for any medical procedure in which an artificial or organic lifeform (the blank broker) voluntarily transfers his, her, or its mind into an organic body (the blank).

Though minor malfunctions have been reported, historically the procedure has been simple, painless and completely reversible.

Blank brokerage differs slightly from mind duplication, wherein a copy of a sentient’s mind is placed in the blank.

It is important to note that, in blank brokerage and mind duplication, no life is extinguished by transfer.

The blank, which is grown for the sole purpose of the procedure, is an empty shell.

Despite many popular virtuals depicting blanks suffering pain or fomenting rebellion, the blank – which can be grown in the shape of almost any lifeform – is no more alive than a cloned spleen.

[A note from the dictionary’s Edit-o-Tron 4500: In many galaxies, there is still a stigma associated with becoming an organic lifeform.

In those locations, “mind transference” is the politically correct term for the procedure. Some Meks and most Ayes find the phrase “blank brokerage” crass and insulting.]

[A note from the Author: Some Ayes – like Rachel-7 – find the whole procedure crass and insulting.]

[A note from the Humbolt Sector Judiciary Department:Involuntary Blank Brokerage is a serious crime. If you or someone you know has been forced into a blank without your consent, please notify your Sector Representative.]

[A note from Stuck Station’s Edit-O-Tron 4500: This "Stuck On:" has too many addendums. A rewrite is strongly suggested.]

In more ways than one, he thought, as he looked at his now-stunning friend.

Flowing crimson hair framed her perfect face, an oval of dark, flawless skin. Crystal clear eyes and sparkling teeth, she was a knockout.

Which made her “conversion” even funnier.

“I suppose it’s good to see you too,” she said. “You are uninjured?”

Because of Jeska’s bizarre behavior – Daniel’s powerful denial-reflex refused to call it a betrayal – he saw Rachel-7's beauty without longing. To his broken heart, she was lovely in a distant sort of way, like a fire seen through a hazy viewscreen.

That didn't stop him from staring.

“Daniel?”

Gorgeous or not, she was still Rachel-7, and that meant he had to keep her pride in check. He and Trak found the best way to do that was not answering her questions.

“Captain?” she said, sarcastically.

There was something about her eyes, though.

“I’m going to start calling you names, and when you feel like I’ve described you perfectly, please answer.”

Daniel wondered why her eyes seemed so familiar. And then he realized they were the same eyes she had used as her personal avatar. He'd only seen them anytime she deigned to meet "in person" with him and Trak.

“Moron? Fool? Idiot?” she said.

Trak, Daniel remembered.

“Is Trak with you?” he said.

“You respond to ‘idiot,'” she said. "Good to know. He’s not with me, but he’s fine, if this incompetent Aye is to be believed.”

Jeska didn’t lie at all, said the part of him that was fighting a losing battle with the truth. She was just confused. And worried. That must have been why she took my ship.

“So,” Daniel said, “we meet up with Trak and try to find –”

“Aren’t you the least bit curious as to why I am a kepping human?!”

“You’ve wanted to be one of us so long,” Daniel said, “I assumed you’d met the blue pharaoh from the old Earth stories, and she turned you into a real girl.”

“Still not funny. I don’t know why I'm human.”

“I didn’t ask.”

“But you wanted to know.”

“Nope,” he said, and looked around the spherical medical center. The place was dead quiet. “I want to know why we’re still alive. That cannon should have killed us. I’d also like know what’s wrong with this place. … Speaking of which, do you know anything about coasters? ”

“What?”

Daniel filled Rachel-7 in on what had happened to him after the explosion.

“So I could get spaced if I don’t take the tour,” Rachel-7 said. “I’m not the least surprised. This place is a disaster.”

Rachel-7 rolled her eyes. “She's made a fool of you again. Why do you fall for it?”

“I think it’s a misunderstanding,” Daniel said quickly.

“She put one over on you. And she had that Prnei fellow help.”

“No. She’ll be back,” he said, but he heard the doubt in his own voice.

“She won’t.”

Daniel stared awkwardly into space.

“Anyway, how’d you contact me?” Daniel said, when he came back to life. “I couldn’t reach you.”

“I tricked Tour Guide into opening a link chat,” she said, looking pleased with herself. “The Aye is stunningly stupid. It took me to three different locations on its idiotic ‘tour’ before I convinced it I didn’t want to do a look-around.”

Daniel nodded his head. “And you have no idea why you’re human?”

“Ha! I knew you were curious!”

“Then I guess you win in this conversation,” he said, still smarting from her critique of his former lover. “Any thoughts as to why you’re now oh-so-lovely, Miss Universe?”

Daniel raise an eyebrow at her apparent expression of concern. Had being human already started to change her?

“Because I’m certainly not listening to another one your lame attempts at bluffing,” Rachel-7 said. “It’s pathetic, and you’re not good at it.”

That's the Rachel-7 I know.

“I’m sure Alitma thinks were dead,” Daniel said.

“Ugh, of course!” she said, remembering. “He thinks were dead. I knew that, but I couldn't ...

A shocked expression took over her face.

"I couldn’t access the information fast enough!" she said. Obviously something like that had never had happened to her. "This mind has almost no memory storage capacity and terrible retrieval system! It's barely a brain. More of like datacore lite.”

Given his recent memory trouble, Daniel had to agree. Maybe I can find another augmem when the tour is over?

“And what’s worse,” she said, “I have to devote most of my mental resources just to hold this conversation. I used to be able to do a thousand things at once. Now I struggle to think about what I'm going to say next. How did your species accomplish anything without running multiple instances of yourselves at the same time?”

“We built Ayes,” he said. And augmems.

“One of humanities few good inventions," she said. “Now, let’s finish this tour. I’m not getting jettisoned – I plan to live forever."

She thought for a second.

"And if have to die," she said, gesturing to herself with both hands, "I’m certainly not dying in this."

“Hey Broken Aye,” Rachel-7 said. “Any chance we can speed this thing up? Can Daniel and I commute our sentence? Or is there an abridged version of your speech?

“I’m sorry,” the Tour Guide said. “All tours must be taken individually to allow visitors to appreciate the grandeur of the station. And it would be unwise to miss a single part of the history behind some the facility’s fine amenities, especially—”

“So, ‘no’ then," Daniel said.

“I’m sorry,” The Tour Guide said.

Daniel took a swig of his flask.

“I’m going to need one of those before this tour is over,” Rachel-7 said.

“I’ve got plenty left … for some reason,” he said.

Putting his flask back in his robe, Daniel didn’t see Rachel-7’s eyes widen at his words.

He hadn't figured out why the bottle was nearly full, but he didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth.